We will go straight to the cardinal task of this column, which is, dishing out linguistic gems picked up over the week. Here we go…
Page 20 of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet of Monday, August 3, has four stories, one of which is thus headlined: ‘TBF Taifa Cup reaches grand finale.’
It is a story on the Tanzania Basketball Federation (TBF) Taifa Cup Championship semi-finals which were held in Dodoma recently. The scribbler reports in Para 4: “The men’s semi-finals promised equally exciting action AS Songwe WERE locked horns with Geita…” Grammar has been violated here, rendering the sentence nonsensical.
The past tense plural form of the verb “to be”—WERE—is out of place. It means the sentence should have been written this way: “The men’s semi-finals promised equally exciting action AS Songwe LOCKED horns with Geita…”
Another story, which is about the 2026 Commonwealth Games that took place from July 23 to August 2 is entitled, ‘Makenji leads Tanzania’s medal hopes after historic 200m record.’ Says the scribbler in Para 5: “However, she was eliminated AFTER her performance WAS NOT ENOUGH to secure a place in the next stage of the competition.”
There is syntactical goofing in this sentence. Now, instead of fussing about it, we shall simply do a rewrite: “However, she was eliminated SINCE (not “after”) her performance WAS NOT ‘good’ ENOUGH to secure a place in the next stage of the competition.”
In Para 9, the scribbler reports further on the elimination of Tanzanian boxer Zawadi Kutaka: “The defeat ended Tanzania’s hopes in boxing after other representatives, including Faki Issa Faki and team captain Yusuf Changalawe HAD exited earlier in the competition…”
The verb that we pen in caps is not needed for it simply introduces grammatical mess. It should read, in part: “The defeat ended Tanzania’s hopes in boxing after other representatives, including Faki Issa Faki and team captain Yusuf Changalawe, EXITED earlier in the competition…”
Finally, we take a look at Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet of Monday, August 3. The Front Page of this one has a story with this headline: ‘Eight killed, 66 hurt as two buses collide,’ and for his intro, the scribbler says the following: “Eight people died and 66 others were injured following a head-on-collision involving PASSENGER buses at Ibihwa Village in Bahi District, Dodoma Region.”
An old goof has re-emerged here—‘passenger’ buses! A bus, as our wordbook explains, is a large motor vehicle designed to carry passengers. Which is to say, it is nonsensical to qualify the word “bus” with “passenger.” Just call it “a BUS.”
Page 3 of the broadsheet is carrying a photo, the caption of which reads: “Thomas Mgonto, Member of Parliament for Ikungi East CONSTITUENCY in Singida Region, recently addressed pupils at Unyahati Secondary School during a tour of schools within his CONSTITUENCY. Throughout his visits, he STRONGLY urged pupils to uphold strict discipline and good morals to SIGNIFICANTLY enhance their performance in national examinations.”
Hello! When someone is the MP for an area, that area is, obviously, a constituency, so, why say it? In any case, the word “constituency” appears at the end of the cited sentence. Boring, isn’t it?
Furthermore, the adverb “strongly” that qualifies the verb “urge” has been unnecessarily used since this word in itself connotes forcefulness. Actually, according to our wordbook, “urge” means to STRONGLY advise, persuade or forcefully push someone in a specific direction. We also consider the adverb significantly unnecessary.
Ah, this treacherous language called English!
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